Welcome to another edition of Payout Perspective. This time we take a look at UFC 260 at the Apex in Las Vegas, Nevada. The main event saw Stipe Miocic defend his heavyweight title against Francis Ngannou.
Ngannou wins UFC Heavyweight Championship
The rematch between Stipe Miocic and Francis Ngannou was vastly different from their first bout. Ngannou showed a much-improved wrestling game and still has the power in his fists. He was able to KO Miocic in the first round of their title fight. Miocic, one of the best heavyweight champs in the UFC, took the loss in stride and posted that he was fine after a vicious KO that had him land awkwardly.
As for Ngannou, he is the third current African champion the promotion has joining Israel Adesanya and Kamaru Usman. While there was not much clamor for a trilogy fight, the real noise came from Jon Jones who moved to heavyweight after relinquishing the light heavyweight title. Unfortunately, while the night should have belonged to Ngannou, Jones took the spotlight away from him showing once again why he’s the promotion’s top star and biggest headache.
Attendance
Still no attendance but Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta were invited guests tonight. Also in attendance was Machine Gun Kelly, Megan Fox, Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker who appeared to be on a double date.
MGK, Megan Fox, Travis Barker and Kourtney Kardashian in the house for #UFC260 🙌
— ESPN (@espn) March 28, 2021
(@espnmma) pic.twitter.com/8kdRcCmnnP
The bonuses went to Francis Ngannou, Sean O’Malley, Tyron Woodley and Vincent Luque. Ngannou and O’Malley earned $50K Performance Bonuses while Woodley and Luque drew Fight of the Night for their quick 1st round battle that ended with a Luque submission.
Promotional Guidelines Compliance
Saturday marked the end of the UFC-Reebok deal as Venum will take over as the official uniform of the company. The final payouts were as follows:
Francis Ngannou: $30,000
def. Stipe Miocic: $40,000
Vicente Luque: $15,000
def. Tyron Woodley: $15,000
Sean O’Malley: $5,000
def. Thomas Almeida: $5,000
Miranda Maverick: $3,500
def. Gillian Robertson: $5,000
Jamie Mullarkey: $3,500
def. Khama Worthy: $4,000
Alonzo Menifield: $4,000
def. Fabio Cherant: $3,500
Abubakar Nurmagomedov: $3,500
def. Jared Gooden: $3,500
Michal Oleksiejczuk: $5,000
def. Modestas Bukauskas: $3,500
Omar Morales: $4,000
def. Shane Young: $4,000
Marc-Andre Barriault: $4,000
def. Abu Azaitar: $3,500
Ratings
The UFC 260 PPV Prelims drew 718,000 viewers and ranked 5th overall in cable ratings Saturday.
Sponsorships
Watchgang.com, a watch club, was the newest sponsor in the UFC octagon. Also in the Octagon was QuikTrip and Monster.com sharing a ring post, Draft Kings, P3, TR2, Modelo, Nemiroff, Guaranteed Rate, U.S. Army, BodyArmor, Toyo Tires, Howler Head and Monster had the cetner of the Octagon.
Manscaped.com and TR2 also had the outside standing areas outside of the cage.
Modelo had the fighter pre point.
GOVX sponsored the Embedded series.
Of course, DraftKings was all over the broadcast with fighter odds and its new fighter clock. Also showed during the telecast was a trailer for the movie, Mortal Kombat.
Trojan Condoms also got in on the activation with a congrats to the new Champ.
Odds and Ends
There were some changes to this fight card due to COVID-19. Jessica Penne’s return to the Octagon was delayed as her fight with Hannah Goldy was taken off the card and moved to April 17th. Also, William Knight was taken off the card because of COVID-19 protocol and Fabio Cherant took his place.
Francis Ngannou sold NFTs which were tied to whether he won or lost on Saturday. His 1/1 digitial art was purchased for $284,000 which was more than a Patrick Mahonnes NFT.
YouTube star, chiropractor Dr. Jason, adjusted Tyron Woodley prior to his bout against Vincente Luque Saturday.
UFC 260 drew over 1 million google searches on Saturday night. Sean O’Malley finished 20th overall in google searches with over 100,000.
Conclusion
Despite a 718,000 prelim rating on ESPN, UFC 260 likely did well in PPV on ESPN+. Heavyweight fights perform well and Miocic-Ngannou was a rematch that fans wanted to see. The UFC had a great 2020 and 2021 is off to a very good start. I would suggest that this event drew 400,000 buys.
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